What is a secondary source?
A secondary source is a scholarly discussion based on primary sources. Typically, a secondary source contains original research.
Why should I use secondary sources?
Secondary sources are useful for in-depth analysis of your topic and for learning about scholarly perspectives on your topic. You can use a secondary source as a conversation partner about a topic or you can take the methodology from a secondary source an apply it to a new research question.
What are some examples of secondary sources?
Secondary sources include articles, blogs, books (often called monographs), lectures, podcasts, and scientific reports. Any kind of scholarly literature can be a secondary source.
Pro tip: Although the distinction between primary sources and secondary sources is useful, it is not absolute. A secondary source may become a primary source depending on the researcher's perspective. Consider a textbook on American history from the 1990's. If a researcher uses the textbook for a scholarly perspective on the civil rights movement, then it is a secondary source. However, if the researcher uses the textbook to as evidence of curriculum in the 1990's, then it is a primary source.
On this page, you will find links to specialized databases relating to English literature. Use these databases to find citations and full-text links to articles from journals in related subject areas, as well as some citations to books and book chapters.
Please see the links below for journals by literary subject and geographic location.
A comprehensive collection of primary texts, contemporary and historical criticism, reference sources, full text journals, and audio and video by and about authors from around the world. Search the ABELL (Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature) index of bibliographic citations for literary criticism here. Formerly Literature Online (LION).
Provides access to more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
Provides image and full text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics and other fields of the humanities and social sciences. Consult the online tables of contents for holdings, as coverage varies for each title.
If you are experiencing printing problems from JSTOR while using a Macintosh computer, please download the most recent version of Adobe Reader. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.
If you need assistance, please contact the CIS Help Desk or eresources@brown.edu.
See ProQuest One Literature.
The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature covers monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews and collections of essays published anywhere in the world from 1920 onwards. It is available to search via ProQuest One Literature.
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